‘You can’t eat granite’

Granite quarry in Barre, Vt.

“They can have their granite. I’ll take the good clean earth for me…. People can get along without tombstones, but they can’t get along without food, they can’t get along without potatoes, eggs, milk, butter, bread, vegetables. You can’t eat granite.”

— Vermont farmer quoted in Men Against Granite, a selection of 55 interviews by Mari Tomasi conducted in 1938-1940 by the Federal Writers Project in Vermont.